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Albedo (alchemy)
In alchemy, albedo, or leucosis, is the second of the four major stages of the Magnum Opus, along with nigredo, citrinitas and rubedo. It is a Latinicized term meaning "whiteness". Following the chaos or ''massa confusa'' of the nigredo stage, the alchemist undertakes a purification in albedo, which is literally referred to as ''ablutio'' – the washing away of impurities. This phase is concerned with "bringing light and clarity to the prima materia (the First Matter)". In this process, the subject is divided into two opposing principles to be later coagulated to form a unity of opposites or ''coincidentia oppositorum'' during rubedo. Alchemists also applied it to an individual's soul after the first phase is completed, which entailed the decay of matter. In Medieval literature, which developed an intricate system of images and symbols for alchemy, the dove often represented this stage, while the raven symbolized nigredo. Titus Burckhardt interprets the albedo as the end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnum Opus
A masterpiece, , or ; ; ) is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, a "masterpiece" was a work of a very high standard produced by an apprentice to obtain full membership, as a "master", of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts. Etymology The form ''masterstik'' is recorded in English or Scots in a set of Aberdeen guild regulations dated to 1579, whereas ''masterpiece'' is first found in 1605, already outside a guild context, in a Ben Jonson play. ''Masterprize'' was another early variant in English. In English, the term rapidly became used in a variety of contexts for an exceptionally good piece of creative work, and was "in early use, often applied to man as the 'masterpiece' of God or Nature". History Originally, the term ''masterpiece'' referred to a piece of work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchemy
Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.. Greek-speaking alchemists often referred to their craft as "the Art" (τέχνη) or "Knowledge" (ἐπιστήμη), and it was often characterised as mystic (μυστική), sacred (ἱɛρά), or divine (θɛíα). Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of " base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnum Opus (alchemy)
In alchemy, the Magnum Opus or Great Work is a term for the process of working with the prima materia to create the philosopher's stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual chrysopoeia, transmutation in the Hermeticism, Hermetic tradition, attached to laboratory processes and chemical color changes, used as a model for the individuation process, and as a device in art and literature. The magnum opus has been carried forward in New Age and neo-Hermetic movements which sometimes attached new symbolism and significance to the processes. The original process philosophy has four stages: *''nigredo'', the blackening or melanosis *''Albedo (alchemy), albedo'', the whitening or leucosis *''citrinitas'', the yellowing or xanthosis *''rubedo'', the reddening, purpling, or iosis The origin of these Humorism, four phases can be traced at least as far back as the first century. Zosimus of Panopolis wrote that it was known to Mary the Jewess. The development of black, white ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nigredo
In alchemy, nigredo, or blackness, means putrefaction or decomposition. Many alchemists believed that as a first step in the pathway to the philosopher's stone, all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform black matter. In analytical psychology, the term became a metaphor for "the dark night of the soul, when an individual confronts the shadow within." Jung For Carl Jung, "the rediscovery of the principles of alchemy came to be an important part of my work as a pioneer of psychology". As a student of alchemy, he (and his followers) "compared the 'black work' of the alchemists (the nigredo) with the often highly critical involvement experienced by the ego, until it accepts the new equilibrium brought about by the creation of the self." Jungians interpreted nigredo in two main psychological senses. The first sense represented a subject's initial state of undifferentiated unawareness, "the first nigredo, that of the , is an objective state, vis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citrinitas
Citrinitas, or sometimes xanthosis,Joseph Needham. ''Science & Civilisation in China: Chemistry and chemical technology. Spagyrical discovery and invention : magisteries of gold and immortality.'' Cambridge. 1974. p.23 is a term given by alchemists to "yellowness." It is one of the four major stages of the alchemical magnum opus. In alchemical philosophy, citrinitas stood for the dawning of the "solar light" inherent in one's being, and that the reflective "lunar or soul light" was no longer necessary. The other three alchemical stages were nigredo (blackness), albedo (whiteness), and rubedo (redness). Psychologist Carl Jung is credited with interpreting the alchemical process as analogous to modern-day psychoanalysis. In the Jungian archetypal schema, nigredo is the Shadow; albedo refers to the anima and animus (contrasexual soul images); citrinitas is the wise old man (or woman) archetype The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubedo
Rubedo is a Latin word meaning "redness" that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in their magnum opus. Both gold and the philosopher's stone were associated with the color red, as rubedo signaled alchemical success, and the end of the great work. Rubedo is also known by the Greek word ''iosis''. Interpretation The three alchemical stages preceding rubedo were nigredo (blackness), which represented putrefaction and spiritual death; albedo (whiteness), which represented purification; and citrinitas (yellowness), the solar dawn or awakening. Some sources describe the alchemical process as three-phased with citrinitas serving as mere extension and takes place between albedo and rubedo. The rubedo stage entails the attempt of the alchemist to integrate the psychospiritual outcomes of the process into a coherent sense of self before its re-entry to the world. The stage can take some time or years to complete due to the required synthesis and substant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaos (cosmogony)
Chaos () is the cosmological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in early Greek cosmology. It can also refer to an early state of the cosmos constituted of nothing but undifferentiated and indistinguishable matter. Etymology Greek ''kháos'' () means ' emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss', related to the verbs ''kháskō'' () and ''khaínō'' () 'gape, be wide open', from Proto-Indo-European ', cognate to Old English ''geanian'', 'to gape', whence English '' yawn''. It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss, or infinite darkness. Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BC) interprets ''chaos'' as water, like something formless that can be differentiated. Greco-Roman tradition Hesiod and the pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod's Chaos has been interpreted as either "the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity" or "the gaping space below the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unity Of Opposites
The unity of opposites ( or ) is the philosophical idea that opposites are interconnected by the way each is defined in relation to the other. Their interdependence unites the seemingly opposed terms. The unity of opposites is sometimes equated with the identity of opposites, but this is mistaken as the unity formed by the opposites does not require them to be identical. V.T.JMcGill and W.T. Parry, ''Science & Society'', vol. 12 no. 4 (Fall 1948), pp.418-444].  Ancient philosophy The unity of opposites was first suggested t ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval Literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 14th, 15th or 16th century, depending on country). The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Like modern literature, it is a broad field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in between. Works of literature are often grouped by place of origin, language, and genre. Languages Outside of Europe, medieval literature was written in Geʽez, Ethiopic, Syriac language, Syriac, Coptic language, Coptic, Japanese language, Japanese, Chinese language, Chinese, and Arabic, among many other languages. In Western Europe, Latin was the common language for medieval writing, since Latin was the language of the Roman Catholic Church, which domin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titus Burckhardt
Titus Burckhardt (; ; 24 October 1908 – 15 January 1984) was a Swiss writer and a leading member of the Perennialist or Traditionalist School. He was the author of numerous works on metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, esoterism, alchemy, Sufism, symbolism and sacred art. Life Scion of a patrician family of Basel, Switzerland, Titus Burckhardt was the son of the sculptor Carl Burckhardt (1878–1923) and the grand-nephew of Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897), an art historian and Renaissance specialist. His genealogical tree also includes John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817), the explorer who discovered the Nabatean city of Petra and the Egyptian temples of Abu Simbel. He was born in Florence, Italy, on October 24, 1908. The following year his family settled in Basel. He attended the same primary school as Frithjof Schuon, who became a lifelong friend. In 1920, his family left Basel for Ligornetto in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where his father died three years later. Around 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a complex and convoluted academic, best known for his concept of Jungian archetypes, archetypes. Alongside contemporaries Sigmund Freud, Freud and Alfred Adler, Adler, Jung became one of the most influential psychologists of the early 20th century and has fostered not only scholarship, but also popular interest. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies. He worked as a research scientist at the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Zurich, under Eugen Bleuler. Jung established himself as an influential mind, developing a friendship with Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, conducting a The Freud/Jung Letters, leng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anima (Jung)
The anima and animus are a pair of dualistic, Jungian archetypes which form a syzygy, or union of opposing forces. Carl Jung described the animus as the unconscious masculine side of a woman, and the anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man, each transcending the personal psyche. They are considered animistic parts within the Self, with Jung viewing parts of the self as part of the infinite set of archetypes within the collective unconscious. Anima and animus are described in analytical psychology and archetypal psychology, under the umbrella of transpersonal psychology. Modern Jungian clinical theory under these frameworks considers a syzygy-without-its-partner to be like yin without yang. The goal is to become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole, similar to positive psychology's understanding of a well-tuned personality through something like a Goldilocks principle. For men, this involves accepting ''eros,'' or desire for connection; for women, this m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
